Southwest High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Central Union High School → Imperial High School → Brawley Union High School → Calexico High School → Indio High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.7%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,854 | -32 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,792 | -94 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,732 | -154 | $0 |
Straight-line extrapolation of the recent annual rate — a what-if, not a forecast of intent. Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423/ADA). Edit the figure to match your school.
Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25
Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the Imperial County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Families who enroll at Southwest High School stay (90.6% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping faster than Imperial County (school -0.6% vs. county +9.3%). The audit question isn't why students leave — it's why fewer families are choosing to enroll in the first place.
183 of 1,942 students who enrolled at Southwest High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (9.4% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.
Stability by student group
Nearest peer high schools
Source: California Department of Education, Stability Rate 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 cumulative enrollees so by-design-high-churn continuation schools don't dominate the bottom of the distribution. Cumulative enrollment counts every student on the rolls during the year, so it can exceed peak-day enrollment.
Chronic absenteeism — 2024-25
Share of students missing 10% or more of expected attendance — the leading indicator that often precedes the demand decline shown above. Families disengaging tend to raise absenteeism first, then formally leave. Basis: grades 9–12.
Absenteeism is up 10.1 pp since 2016-17. A rising absenteeism trend often precedes formal departure — worth investigating which subgroups are driving it.
Source: California Department of Education, Chronic Absenteeism 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 eligible students. CDE didn't publish a usable 2019-20 file (COVID).
SBAC academic outcomes — grade 11, 2025
Share of grade-11 students meeting or exceeding the California standard on Smarter Balanced ELA and Math. This is the academic-readiness signal that pairs with UC Reach (post-grad outcomes), stability (retention), and absenteeism (engagement). Note: statewide median Math is only ~20% — a school at 20% isn't an outlier; one at 45%+ genuinely is.
Source: California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Smarter Balanced research files. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥30 tested students.
Student composition — 2025-26
HS grades 9–12 racial/ethnic composition and program subgroups, from CDE Census Day Enrollment. Two-year shift shown when ≥1 pt — surfaces how the community served has changed since 2023-24.
Race / ethnicity
Program subgroups
Source: California Department of Education, Census Day Enrollment 2025-26 (HS grades 9–12). Δ shown when shift is ≥1 pt since 2023-24. Categories below 0.5% omitted.
District financial profile — Central Union High (FY2020)
From 4 years of NCES F-33 filings (the federally-mandated district finance survey). Public schools don't have their own books — the district does. These figures show the financial scale, revenue dependence, instruction-vs-overhead mix, and long-term debt that shape what a school can sustain.
Local: 13.6%
Federal: 16.6%
Source: NCES F-33 Annual Survey of School System Finances (Urban Institute Education Data API). Latest year currently published: FY2020. F-33 is a district-level federal filing — it reflects the Central Union High as a whole, not this individual school's books. Revenue mix shows where the district's dollars come from (state aid dominates in CA via LCFF). Instruction share is current expenditure on instruction ÷ total current expenditure (national benchmark ~60%). Long-term debt is end-of-year outstanding (mostly facilities bonds).
On the peer median (12.8%) · Ranked #5 of 10 similar schools
18.5%
12.8%
53.3%
13.2%
Higher than 33% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Southwest High School's UC Reach of 13.2% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Southwest High School's UC Reach is higher than 33% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Southwest High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · El Centro · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Southwest High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 10): 13% vs. a peer median of 13%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 3 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 1% (482→479 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of +7%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.7%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1792 by 2029 — about 94 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 94 fewer students. At per-student funding of $ per student, that's roughly $0 in annual state funding at risk.
Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423 per ADA) — adjust to your district's actual per-pupil figure. Projection extrapolates the recent annual rate — not a forecast of intent.
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest High School | Public | 1886 | 13.2% | -1% |
| Peer-group median | 12.8% | +7% | ||
| Central Union High School | Public | 2023 | 9.6% | +8% |
| Imperial High School | Public | 1449 | 10.2% | +40% |
| Brawley Union High School | Public | 1868 | 11.7% | +18% |
| Calexico High School | Public | 2703 | 11.9% | -6% |
| Indio High School | Public | 1925 | 17.2% | +18% |
| Desert Mirage High School | Public | 1818 | 23.6% | -16% |
| El Capitan High School | Public | 1803 | 12.8% | +22% |
| Valhalla High School | Public | 1692 | 17.5% | -18% |
| Palm Desert High School | Public | 2107 | 29.1% | +7% |
| Literacy First Charter | Public | 2110 | — | -14% |
UC Reach = top-6 UC admits ÷ senior class (can exceed 100% when students are admitted to multiple campuses). Enrollment trend = first-to-latest grade-12 change on file. Similar schools matched on proximity, size, type. Methodology →
Admit rate vs. CA peer average, by campus ⓘ
How does this school's admit rate at each UC compare to other CA schools whose applicant pool averages the same GPA?
| Campus | Applicant GPA (avg) | Actual admit rate | CA peer avg | Δ | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 3.87 | 11.8% | 11.6% | +0.1pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.74 | 6.7% | 9.1% | -2.5pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.74 | 26.9% | 26.9% | -0.1pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.78 | 56.5% | 26.4% | +30.1pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.79 | 27.9% | 19.6% | +8.3pp | Over |
| UC Davis | 3.74 | 37.0% | 32.0% | +5.0pp | On target |
Where Southwest High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (25.1% actual vs. 20.6% expected).
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025
Class size from CDE grade 12 enrollment. Campus-level data — applicant/admit totals may count a student at multiple campuses more than once.
Campus Breakdown — 2025
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 34 | 4 | — | 11.8% | 0.9% | — | 3.87 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 45 | 3 | — | 6.7% | 0.7% | — | 3.74 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 67 | 18 | 12 | 26.9% | 4.0% | 66.7% | 3.74 | 4.20 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 23 | 13 | 5 | 56.5% | 2.9% | 38.5% | 3.78 | 4.05 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 43 | 12 | 3 | 27.9% | 2.6% | 25.0% | 3.79 | 4.03 |
| UC Davis → | 27 | 10 | — | 37.0% | 2.2% | — | 3.74 | 4.06 |